Being detected stealing figs in an orchard, the proprietor threatened to tell his mother, and the boy pleaded for himself with so much eloquence, that the man suffered him to escape.

His careless attire, and his partiality for a pretty little girl in the neighbourhood, were ridiculed together in a song which his playmates used to shout after him in the streets of Ajaccio: "Napoleone di mezza calzetta Fa l'amore a Giacominetta."[3] His superiority of character was early felt.

An aged relation, Lucien Buonaparte, Archdeacon of Ajaccio, called the young people about his death-bed to take farewell and bless them: "You, Joseph," said the expiring man, "are the eldest; but Napoleon is the head of his family.
Take care to remember my words." Napoleon took excellent care that they should not be forgotten.

He began with beating his elder brother into subjection.
From his earliest youth he chose arms for his profession.

When he was about seven years old (1776) his father was, through Marboeuff's patronage, sent to France as one of a deputation from the Corsican _noblesse_ to King Louis XVI.; and Napoleon, for whom the count had also procured admission into the military school of Brienne, accompanied him.
After seeing part of Italy, and crossing France, they reached Paris; and the boy was soon established in his school, where at first everything delighted him, though, forty years afterwards, he said he should never forget the bitter parting with his mother ere he set out on his travels.
He spoke only Italian when he reached Brienne; but soon mastered French.
His progress in Latin, and in literature generally, attracted no great praise; but in every study likely to be of service to the future soldier, he distinguished himself above his contemporaries.